Darkwing Duck (series)
For the title character, see Darkwing Duck. Darkwing Duck is an American animated action-adventure comedy television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation that first ran from 1991 to 1992 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. It featured the eponymous anthropomorphic duck superhero whose alter ego is suburban father Drake Mallard. On April 2, 2015, a rumor surfaced that Disney would be rebooting the series for a 2018 premiere.This has since been debunked, instead it is returning as a comic book published by Joe Books, premiering on April 27, 2016. Premise Darkwing Duck tells the adventures of the titular superhero, aided by his sidekick and pilot Launchpad McQuack (from Ducktales). In his secret identity of Drake Mallard (a parody of Kent Allard, the alter ego of the Shadow), he lives in an unassuming suburban house with his adopted daughter Gosalyn, next door to the bafflingly dim-witted Muddlefoot family. Darkwing struggles to balance his egotistical craving for fame and attention against his desire to be a good father to Gosalyn and help do good in St. Canard. Most episodes put these two aspects of Darkwing's character in direct conflict, though Darkwing's better nature usually prevails. The show was the first Disney Afternoon series to emphasize action rather than adventure, with Darkwing routinely engaging in slapstick battles with both supervillains and street criminals. While conflict with villains was routine in earlier Disney Afternoon shows, actual fight scenes were relatively rare. Darkwing Duck was also the first Disney Afternoon property that was produced completely as a genre parody. Prior shows would contain elements of parody in certain episodes, but would otherwise be straight-faced adventure concepts, this in the tradition of Carl Barks' work in the Disney comics. By contrast, every episode of Darkwing Duck is laden with references to superhero, pulp adventure, or super-spy fiction. Darkwing Duck himself is a satirical character. His costume, gas gun and flashy introductions are all reminiscent of pulp heroes and Golden Age superheroes such as The Shadow, The Sandman, Doc Savage, Batman, The Green Hornet and the Julius Schwartz Flash, as well as The Lone Ranger and Zorro. The fictional city of St. Canard is a direct parody of Gotham City. Episodes Characters Main *Darkwing Duck / Drake Mallard (voiced by Jim Cummings) is an average citizen by day and St. Canard's resident superhero by night. He possesses a mix of courageous altruism and a gigantic arrogance and ego – two drives that constantly clash during his adventures. For example, in the first part of the episode "Just Us Justice Ducks", he is initially mortified that he would be getting help against the Fearsome Five. Darkwing's origins are rather fuzzy. During his childhood and teenage years, Drake was a complete dork, but by his high school days, he had already developed an obsession with crime-fighting. However, he frequently claims to have become a superhero on the day he became Darkwing Duck after his teenage years. He has been an active superhero for an unknown number of years. In his earliest days of crime fighting, he was more focused on the headlines from his career, to the extent that in the second part of the pilot episode "Darkly Dawns the Duck" he laments that he has no life outside his showboating and no friends to turn to. Launchpad McQuack and Gosalyn give him a life and help keep him grounded. Her importance to him is shown in "Time and Punishment", where losing Gosalyn causes him to develop a maniacal zeal about crime-fighting and to devolve into a ruthless dictator in name of the law and order. His two recurring catchphrases are "I am the terror that flaps in the night" (followed by an improvised metaphor before he gives his name), and the battle cry of "let's get dangerous". Because of loose continuity in the show, as well as Darkwing's self-aggrandizing habits, there is more than one origin story for why and how he became Darkwing Duck – including the episodes "Paraducks" (in which the young Drake is inspired by his own time-travelling adult self),"Clash Reunion" (in which he wears a random disguise so he can defend his high school prom from Megavolt; this is the true origin at least continuity wise), "The Secret Origins of Darkwing Duck" (a Superman parody, which is obviously not meant to be taken as his true origin; it is suggested throughout the episode that it is just nonsense being spouted out by a future version of Drake to make his origin seem cooler due to his ego, and at the end of the episode it is stated that the "myth" has "some basis in reality", indicating that it is not meant to be completely true),and "A Star is Scorned" (which is a "what if" episode portraying Darkwing's life as just an act for a TV show, and is not in continuity). *Launchpad McQuack (voiced by Terry McGovern) is Darkwing Duck's sidekick and pilot, who originally appeared as a main character in DuckTales. He refers to Darkwing as "DW" and Darkwing sometimes refers to him as "LP" in return. He is Darkwing's self-proclaimed biggest fan, even spending a year designing and building the Thunderquack aircraft just out of fanboy urges. The hero originally found him annoying but quickly came to see him as a friend. As Gizmoduck also appears in the show, it is confirmed that Launchpad is no longer working for Scrooge McDuck: In the episode "Tiff of the Titans", when Fenton comes to visit Launchpad, Launchpad explains to Drake Mallard that "Fenton and I used to work for the same guy". *Gosalyn Mallard (birth name Waddlemeyer) (voiced by Christine Cavanaugh) is Drake Mallard's 9-year-old adopted daughter. She is an unstoppable bundle of energy and spunk, which Darkwing has said is more of a handful than fighting crime. Her grandfather Professor Waddlemeyer was a famous scientist who was murdered by Taurus Bulba's underlings. She is an occasional crime fighter (going by such names as "Yucky Duck", the "Crimson Quackette",the "Quiverwing Quack",and finally "Gosmoduck" in the Boom! Studios comics), and often gets involved in Darkwing's affairs as herself. Gosalyn being hurt or worse is one of Darkwing's few fears. This applies to the Negaverse version of Gosalyn too, as he intends to leave the alternate reality until he learns that her guardian is Negaduck. Unlike her counterpart, Negaverse Gosalyn is extremely sweet, sentimental, and compliant, and wears a dress. Villains *Negaduck (voiced by Jim Cummings) is Darkwing Duck's evil doppelgänger. Negaduck is one of Darkwing Duck's nemeses and main antagonist in the series. Negaduck is virtually identical to Darkwing except that the colors of his costume are yellow, red, and black. Like Darkwing, Negaduck normally has no special powers or abilities, relying on his intellect, physical prowess, and intimidation. However, he can disguise himself as Darkwing in order to either frame the hero for crimes and thus make him seem to be a criminal, or to gain access to S.H.U.S.H. headquarters. He is very ruthless and has no problem with hurting people to get what he wants – great wealth and authority over the world – until he gets defeated by Darkwing. In the episode "The Quiverwing Quack", he goes on a major crime spree after Darkwing reveals that Negaduck is not bad enough to be Public Enemy No. 1 and is thus relegated to being Public Enemy No. 2. In the episode "Disguise the Limit", when Darkwing turns himself into a copy of Negaduck, the two "Negaducks" have a show-and-tell of who has the most impressive weapons to see who is the worst duck of them all. {This was a parody of the classic The Rabbit of Seville where Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd have an arms race with various weapons!} *Dr. Reginald Bushroot or just Bushroot (voiced by Tino Insana) is a scientist who originally worked at St. Canard University where he tried to integrate plant chloroplasts into animals in an attempt to give people the ability to feed themselves through photosynthesis. After the funding for his research was cut, he used himself as a test subject in an attempt to prove that his theories were correct and thereby to regain his funding. The experiment was a success but with a price – Bushroot was turned into a half-duck/half-plant creature. Unlike the other villains of the series, Bushroots isn't motivated to commit crime out of greed or a desire for power, but rather as part of a quest to find or create a companion who won't reject him. Series creator Tad Stones calls the character "hardly a villain" and said that, given enough time, he would have eventually become a hero. Bushroot uses his newfound control over plants as his main weapon and views them as people. He was the show's earliest recurring supervillain. He is a possible spoof of the Batman villain Poison Ivy. *The Liquidator / Bud Flud (voiced by Jack Angel) is a mutant water/dog creature with the power to assume a viscous form and control water. He was formerly a crooked bottled-water salesman who began poisoning his competitors' supply to try and achieve a monopoly on the city's bottled water business. When Darkwing catches him in the act of pouring a corrosive chemical into a competitor's reservoir, Flud panics and falls in, mutating into the Liquidator. As the Liquidator, he forgets that he fell in and comes to believe that Darkwing pushed him. He constantly talks in advertising-style lingo. Since he is made of water, he and Megavolt do not interact well. He can still move when he is frozen into ice, but he is slower. His weakness is having a hardening substance poured into him, such as concrete or pudding mix.Of the members of the Fearsome Five, he is the only one to have just a single standalone episode; creator Tad Stones found the character too "one note," preferring to write episodes for Bushroot or Megavolt. He is a probable spoof of the Spider-Man villain Hydro-Man. *Megavolt / Elmo Sputterspark (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) is an insane rat with the ability to control electricity. He was a classmate of Darkwing Duck's in high school, where he gained his powers after a bully sabotaged his science experiment. In revenge, Elmo attacked the senior prom in costume and declared his new name to be Megavolt (after learning that his originally-planned name, "Megawatt", was already taken by the band playing that night), spurring Drake Mallard to create the Darkwing Duck persona and defend his classmates. He was creator Tad Stones' favorite villain, and as a result is the most recurrent antagonist in the series and Darkwing's arch-nemesis. Most of his crimes are motivated by the delusional belief that he is helping to "free" electrical devices, which he believes have been enslaved. One episode indicates that Megavolt has committed at least two murders, as Darkwing claims to have twice sent him to the electric chair. Megavolt often refers to Darkwing as either "Darkwing Dork" or "Dorkwing". He shorts out when hit with water, which is a weakness that sometimes leads to his defeat. He is the first villain to learn Darkwing's secret identity but, being insane, forgets what it is by the end of the episode. He is the only member of the Fearsome Five to team up with another member independent of the organization, twice partnering with Quackerjack. In the comic story "The Duck Knight Returns", he is forced to briefly retire from super-villainy and get an office job (where he works next to Drake); he finds that he prefers prison to working at Quackwerks. In the episode "The Quiverwing Quack", a partially obscured picture of him is shown on a Public Enemies list, revealing that he is Public Enemy No. 3. He is a possible spoof of the Spider-Man villain Electro. In "Dead Duck" where he thinks he's killed Darkwing Duck, he goes on TV Show promoting his book "Killing Superheroes for Fun and Profit" and even threatens Darkwing Duck TV producers that if not paid enough, he will go to the "you-know-who brothers" (a joking reference to Disney's rivals Warner Bros.). *Quackerjack (voiced by Michael Bell) is a toymaker who went insane after the advent of video games put him out of business. He wears a harlequin-style jester costume that he is never seen without; notably, he has very little origin story, as a result of creator Tad Stones being disappointed that the character didn't come across as dark in his initial appearance as he'd hoped. Quackerjack is the only one of the series' villains not to have his real name revealed. He is almost never without his trademark doll, Mr. Banana Brain, which Quackerjack treats as a sentient sidekick. His most common toys are mechanical toy chattering teeth of various sizes. He has been known to team up with Megavolt occasionally. In the comics by Boom! Studios, Quackerjack becomes a more dangerous villain; hurting from Negaduck destroying Mr. Banana Brain and telling him he is not "mean enough" to be a serious villain, then becoming bitter and angry when he fails to fit in at Quackwerks, and viewing others' success as a "rejection of him", he becomes determined to show "the world he is mean enough", but after a series of more evil crimes, he grows tired of being more evil and turns himself into a toy outside his old girlfriend's house, believing "this is the best I can ever be". He is later brought back by Negaduck's "slime" in the "Dangerous Currency" crossover; however, as this story was published by Boom! Studios without being approved by Disney, the story was declared "non-canon" and was not included in Joe Books' remastering of the Boom! Darkwing material in "The Definitively Dangerous Edition", leaving Quackerjack's fate unknown. His name is a pun on the word "crackerjack". He is an obvious spoof of Batman's nemesis, the Joker, and the Superman villain Toyman. Home Media Main Article(s): *Darkwing Duck (series)/Home Media *Disney Afternoon Compilation/Home Media Also See *''DuckTales'' Category:TV Series Category:Animation Category:Darkwing Duck Category:Real world articles